Tag: white

The Republican Party establishment has said that their party has a new message of “inclusiveness” and claimed that they really “care” about all voters, not just the wealthy, white, Christian males. After the Mitt Romney trainwreck derailed, the Chairman of the Republican National Convention, Reince Preibus told the GOP that they had to engage minority communities full-time — not just during an election season. Unfortunately, the right-wing doesn’t seem to understand that “engage” doesn’t meant to repeatedly insult them and the candidates are quickly dashing any hopes of ever seeing the inside of the Oval Office again. During a campaign stop in South Carolina on Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, channeled his Mitt Romney and told the crowd that he would not appeal to African-American voters by promising “free stuff.”

During the question and answer portion of his event Bush responded to a white man who asked him how he would appeal to African-American voters by saying:

“Our message is one of hope and aspiration,” Mr. Bush said. “It isn’t one of division and get in line and we’ll take care of you with free stuff. Our message is one that is uplifting — that says you can achieve earned success.”

Apparently Jeb Bush is just another Republican who believes that the black community are a bunch of lazy moochers who are only interested in taking. This erroneous belief has no basis in reality and ignored the fact that white people make up the largest group of welfare recipients. Even though the statistics are widely available, the GOP continues to perpetuate the stereotypical “black welfare queen” myth. It was the same tactic Mitt Romney deployed during his 2012 election when he told a crowd at a N.A.A.C.P. event:

“Your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this: If they want more stuff from government, tell them to go vote for the other guy — more free stuff. But don’t forget nothing is really free.”

It was no surprise when President Obama trounced Romney at the polls and received 90 percent of the African-American vote and 71 percent of the Hispanic vote. Romney, of course, blamed his loss on Obama giving “gifts” to black people, women and young voters.

Kristy Campbell, a spokeswoman for Bush, said that the candidate “talks constantly about the need for Republicans to reach out to all voters,” but failed to address the “free stuff” comment specifically. She also said:

“We will never be successful in elections without communicating that conservative principles and conservative policies are the only path to restoring the right to rise for every single American.”

She is absolutely right- the GOP will never be successful if they do not broaden their appeal, but, as usual, they are doing it wrong. The Republican Party has made it very clear that they believe all of the insulting stereotypes that their extremely racist base puts forth. They do absolutely nothing to help these voters and everything they can to trample their rights. The party has consistently passed laws todisenfranchise minority and low-income voters, they support institutional racism, gutted the Voting Rights Act, fought to keep a symbol of racism flying in South Carolina after nine African-American churchgoers were massacred and when the police murder minority citizens, they support the officers. Is it any wonder the vast majority of minority voters are Democrats?

The Republican Party, including Bush, are not a party of inclusiveness. They are a party of hate and vitriol, filled with politicians who do not care about anyone who isn’t part of the wealthy elite.

Donald Trump is not a riddle, a monster or a mystery. Trump has many antecedents in American history, and his ascendance was the wholly predictable result of a broken political culture.

For progressives and those others worried about America’s deep political rot, “Trumpmania” represents a supreme and rare teachable moment, one that exposes the racism, authoritarianism, and socio-political anxieties of white movement conservatives in the post civil rights era and the age of Obama.

In many ways, Donald Trump has written a virtual textbook about the worst aspects of present-day, right-wing American politics. This book, if ever published, would include the following important concepts.

1. White identity politics. Donald Trump has been endorsed by prominent white supremacists and white nationalists as their chosen candidate.

(Political socialization begins in the home. According to recently discovered news reports from 1927, Trump’s father was likely at least a sympathizer with, if not a member, of the Ku Klux Klan.)From the end of the Civil Rights Movement onward, the Republican Party has used a strategy of white grievance mongering known as the Southern Strategyto mobilize its voters.

As a complement to the Southern Strategy, since the election of Barack Obama, the right-wing Fox News hate media has obsessively channeled racist narratives such as “birtherism,” “black crime,” and most recently the lie that the Black Lives Matter movement is an anti-white hate group.

The Republican base is almost entirely white, increasingly alienated and upset about the perceived decline in white people’s political and social power, and feeling under siege in a country that is becoming more racially diverse. Donald Trump has combined the old fashioned racism of overt white supremacists with the modern white racist “dog whistle” politics of the Republican Party. He is the new face of American white identity politics in the 21st century.

2. Right-wing producerism. Donald Trump has presented himself as an “everyman” who can speak for the “regular” people who feel alienated and frustrated by the Washington D.C. “insiders” who do not look out for the “little guy.” This is the crudest form of populist politics. Trump then aims his supporters’ anger towards an enemy:immigrants from Mexico who are coming to American to supposedly steal jobs while they rape and murder white women; or the Chinese he presents as a stereotypical devious and sneaky “yellow peril” Asian foe that only Trump can outmaneuver and conquer.

In this script, Donald Trump then promises to protect benefits like Social Security and health care, while creating a more fair tax code for “hardworking” (white) Americans who are under siege by “parasites”, i.e. the poor on one extreme, and the corporate monied classes on the other. Trump’s “makers and takers” language is then mated with hostility to some type of Other in order to excite and mobilize conservatives via right-wing populist zeal.

3. Herrenvolk politics (a system in which minorities are disenfranchised while the ethnic majority holds sway). Donald Trump is using white identity politics to win supporters. Combining overt and subtle racism, part of Trump’s appeal is that he promises to protect the resources and democratic rights of white Americans against their supposed exploitation and theft by non-whites. This is one of the foundations of right-wing producerism.

In the right-wing conservative imagination, real Americans are “hard working,” “Christian” and “white.”Their rights and privileges are to be protected at all costs against lazy black and brown people who are welfare queens, thugs or “illegal” immigrants. The social safety net—while torn at by the 1 percent and right-wing plutocrats—exists to serve white peopleand “real Americans” before any other group. As was seen in Nazi Germany, South Africa, Israel, and other racist apartheid societies, the State exists to provide support and service to the “ingroup” or “master race” while the “outgroup” is denied the same benefits and rights. This is the core of Donald Trump’s herrenvolk appeal.

4. Social dominance behavior. Donald Trump’s supporters are drawn from the same core of aggrieved and angry white voters who comprise the Tea Party wing of the GOP.Research on this group shows that they are racially resentful, fearful of social change, hostile to people who are not like them, believe in natural hierarchies and order, seek out strong leaders, are deferent to authority, and exhibit a type of “bullying politics.” In many ways,Trumpmania is a frightening reflection of the authoritarian values that have infected American conservatives.

5. Know-Nothings. Donald Trump’s nativist, xenophobic and racist politics are the latest version of the 19th century American political movement known as the Know-Nothings. The Know-Nothings 1856 party platform included demands that “Americans must rule America; and to this end native-born citizens should be selected for all state, federal and municipal offices of government employment, in preference to all others…”

This is not unlike Trump’s ginning up of white anxiety and violence towards non-white immigrants.

6. The strong father and “manliness.” Donald Trump repeatedly talks about “strength” while slurring Barack Obama and other political enemies as “weak” or as “pansies.”

Trump is also not limited by what the right-wing sees as “weak” “liberal” notions of “political correctness” as he insults women and throws verbal bombs at any person who disagrees with him.

Right-wing ideologues and authoritarians idolize the strong father figure, one who often uses punitive means of discipline to maintain high levels of control over his wife and children. (The right-wing’s latest slur, “cuckservative,” also reflects their anxieties about white masculinity, race, and sexual potency.)

Donald Trump uses gendered language because America’s political class often defaults to a framework where the Democrats are framed as being weak, feminine or too intellectual. By comparison, the Republicans are depicted as strong, manly and decisive.

Donald Trump is playing the role of strongman for the right-wing ideologues and movement conservatives who are aroused by such a figure because the latter fulfills a psychological need for security and protection in a world they view as dangerous and changing too rapidly. His name-calling, bullying swagger, and indifference to norms of comportment and reasonable behavior are central to Trump’s popularity.

7. Performance art and spectacular politics. Donald Trump’s political success is a product of reality television show culture.

Reality television shows are scripted. The genre is wildly popular among American viewers because it is part of an “empire of illusion” that distracts and confuses the public while allowing them to live out their fantasies and wish fulfillment.

In keeping with that dynamic, Trump’s obsessions with “ratings” and public opinion polls that supposedly show his “popularity” are the result of a broken civic and moral culture that equates “likes” on Facebook or “votes” on American Idol with substantive measures of virtue or human value.

Ultimately, Donald Trump is using his background as a reality TV show host, business celebrity, and fan of professional wrestling to engage in a type of ridiculous and exaggerated performance art that mocks the notion of normal politics. Because Trump is not interested in normal politics—Trump is reality TV mixed with professional wrestling—he is relatively immune from derailment or substantive engagement by the news media or his political rivals in the Republican Party.

8. Conspiracy theories and the paranoid style. Donald Trump was one of the most prominent advocates of “Birtherism”—a belief that Barack Obama, the United States’ first black president, was somehow not eligible for the office because he is not a “real” citizen.

This is an absurdly racist claim; nevertheless it is one that is still believed by 66 percent of Trump supporters and 45 percent of Republicans. Birtherism was the first of many conspiracy theories that would be invented by the right-wing media in the age of Obama. Obsessions about Planned Parenthood, ACORN and Benghazi would follow. These delusions are part of a long pattern of right-wing paranoia that Richard Hofstadter detailed in his landmark 1964 essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”

The right-wing media and the Republican Party’s embrace of conspiracy theories and paranoid delusions contribute to a broken political system because too much time is spent on the absurd instead of doing the work of real governance. The conspiracy fantasies of Donald Trump and the American right-wing constitute an alternative reality that is immune from facts. Consequently, these beliefs function as a type of religious cult where faith—what is a belief that cannot be proven by ordinary means—is substituted for empirical reality.

Donald Trump’s “birtherism” alternate reality is compelling and exciting for those who believe in it. Such conspiranoid delusions are dangerous because they create extreme political polarization, a political system that cannot fulfill its basic functions, encourage violence, and tear at the common beliefs and values that create a sense of political legitimacy and community in the United States.

Informed citizens can create positive political change. An ignorant public can be easily swayed, manipulated, and duped to act against their self-interest and the Common Good.

Donald Trump is a charismatic figure who embodies the fears, hopes, and anxieties of an aggrieved and frustrated white America. He is the hero they are desperate for. He is a product of a particular coincidence of broken politics, an irresponsible Fox News echo chamber media, and a scared and racially resentful public.

Speaking at the Stop the Iran Deal Rally with the U.S. Capitol as his backdrop, Donald Trump at first made the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran seem like a simple negotiation gone awry, nothing more.

“We’re gonna do, and we’re gonna get, nothing. Nothing. We are led by very, very stupid people. Very, very stupid people. We cannot let it continue.”

There were far more homemade signs at the rally than there were “Make America Great Again” caps, the unofficial uniform of Trump’s supporters, but his Art-of-the-Deal take on the Iran deal played well enough with the crowd. They seemed to regard him with amusement and sincere interest, though their general opinion was best expressed later by Sarah Palin who said, “You don’t reward terrorism. You kill it!” This crowd didn’t want a better deal. They wanted no deal.

But it didn’t take long for Trump to suck them in with a rant that gave a clue as to why the flamboyant billionaire is playing so well with white, working class Republicans.

“We lose everywhere. We lose militarily. We can’t beat ISIS. Give me a break. We can’t beat anybody. Our vets are being treated horribly,” he said, and the people around me started murmuring in agreement. Suddenly the crowd, or at least the part I was standing in, shifted from taking in a spectacle to feeling a chord struck inside them. Forget the facts—there are plenty of dead terrorists and Somali pirates who are unavailable to comment—but Trump’s vision of America on a losing streak felt true to the Tea Party crowd.

“It will change,” he said. “We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored of winning. Believe me.”

There was no hollering back where I stood, but that isn’t to say he wasn’t getting a response. The murmuring had taken on a happier tone. “Winning, yeah,” said one. “That’d be nice, huh? Winning?” said another.

“We are going to turn this country around,” Trump said, the crowd now completely with him. “We are going to start winning bigly, on trade, militarily.” And yes, Trump said “bigly,” but no one cared. He’d conjured both a word and a world in which the United States didn’t have the most powerful and lethal military force in the history of the planet. Every word he said felt true to them, even the one he made up.

“We’re going to build up our military. We’re going to have such a strong military, that nobody—nobody!—is going to mess with us. We’re not going to have to use it,” said Trump.

(N.B.: Might makes right)

This is American Exceptionalism re-imagined by Charles Atlas. Trump wants to prove that he can make America so huge and so strong—the strongest!—that no terrorist would dare kick sand in our faces again. Thinking this way is more than a little silly, but it is exactly how the people who went to the Stop Iran Deal Rally felt.

The pity of this all is that the Iran deal shows how America can lead (and win!) in an increasingly disorganized world. We negotiated with Iran from a position of strength. We had support from our European allies. We had Iran’s billions in our banks. Behind door number one was Iran giving up their nuclear weapons program. Behind door number two was Iran becoming the next destination for Drone Airlines. The United States gave up nothing in this deal. In exchange for their own money, Iran gave us what we wanted: an Iran without The Bomb.

This is what winning looks like. This is our enemy surrendering their weapons without a fight not because they love us but because they know they would not survive the fight. After our embassies getting bombed, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia invading Georgia, the red line in Syria, Benghazi, Russia invading Ukraine, Boko Haram, and ISIS, stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons was change we need to believe in.

There are reasonable criticisms of the Iran deal, but you didn’t hear any at the rally. Instead, they got Sen. Ted Cruz, who seems to get his intelligence briefings from Call of Duty. “If this deal goes through, we know to an absolute certainty, people will die,” Cruz said. “Americans will die.” They also heard from Palin, who took the occasion to tell not one but two thinly veiled penis jokes at the President’s expense.

Cruz and Palin are minor players who are as yet unable to tap directly into what animated the crowd at the Stop Iran Deal Rally. “What part of ‘Death to America and Israel’ do you not understand?” read one popular sign. To them, negotiating with Iran exposes our weakness. Maybe they’re being misled. Maybe they’ve thought that everything Obama has done is wrong so long that they can’t see anything he does as right. But if they—and Trump—want America to be great again, they could hardly do better than Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Jason Stanford is a partner with the Truman National Security Project. He is also a national Democratic consultant and writes regular columns for The Austin American-Statesman and The Quorum Report.